Stone Cold | Tanjirou Kamado

3. The sweet embrace of home

“Just what the hell are you doing, Tanjirou?” she questioned, gazing over to one of the demons left, still alive. He was leaning against the wall, arms nowhere to be seen. 

Ayaka looked over Tanjirou’s shoulder at the demon. He looked scared, desperately trying to move away from Tanjirou without success. 

The aforementioned skipped a bit, obviously not expecting her to appear so suddenly. 

“Aya-san!” he said louder than necessary. He then cleared his throat and slightly turned his head to look at her. 

She had already finished off her own demon. It was a trek through countless flower fields compared to Himejima-shishou’s training, so she had no problem. 

The only thing that forced her to still be there was that Tanjirou had to tell her about the reason for such a weird anomaly. A demon that doesn’t eat humans.  

That, and that there was a demon left to defeat. And since Tanjirou was taking too long, Ayaka decided to go see what he was doing, just to find herself looking at that little scene. 

“Our orders are to kill demons whenever we can, why is he still alive?”, she asked, pointing a finger at the demon. “If you don’t kill him soon his arms will grow back and he’ll attack you.” 

Just as she had predicted, from the cut off limbs the demon had for arms came out his claws. He jumped to attack, but fastly enough Tanjirou slid his sword over his head. In a second, the demon’s head fell to the ground. 

His corpse started to fade away in dust and it disappeared with the wind, leaving no proof that he had even been there except for a small piece of cloth. 

Ayaka took it from the floor and opened it, looking at the different hairpins the demon had kept there. Every one of them had belonged to a human girl that just had bad luck. 

Even if the wind carried away the dust of what had once been part of the demon’s body to somewhere else on this world, it would never be able to carry away the pain of all those deaths he had left behind. 

The wounds the demon had made would be there for years, they would never heal but maybe some day they could become merely scars. Ayaka remembered the eyes of the shopkeeper from the day before, wondering if the demon had taken someone loved for him. Even if she shouldn’t care. 

Tanjirou’s hand appeared before her eyes, laying on the piece of cloth Ayaka held in her hands. He didn’t need to talk to make her understand. 

She looked behind him, where the boy Tanjirou had taken with him was petrified on the floor. 

A sigh escaped from her lips as she nodded, giving Tanjirou her affirmation on taking that worn out piece of cloth. 

Tanjirou gave her a last smile as he walked over to the poor guy. They exchanged a few words Ayaka couldn’t hear, since she stayed where she was. What she least wanted was having to comfort someone. 

Her crow appeared over the horizon, taking his place on her shoulder. He had finally come back from Himejima-shishou’s mountain. There was a paper rolled up on his leg and she took it off carefully, keeping it on her pocket.  

Tanjirou was already back by her side by then, wooden box and all on his shoulders. 

Ayaka merely gave him a look, starting to walk without warning. 

“Wait, where are we going, Aya-san!?” he yelled at her back as he tried to catch up with her. Ayaka’s nose wrinkled at the honorifics. 

“Don’t call me that, we are the same age, you know?” she said, when Tanjirou finally reached her side. He just smiled, scratching his head with shame.